List of Desperate Housewives episodes

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama-mystery which premiered on ABC on October 3, 2004, in the United States. The first season had a single special episode, while the second and third season each had two. Seasons one through eight have been released on DVD in Regions 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Desperate Housewives follows the lives of four women–Susan (Teri Hatcher), Lynette (Felicity Huffman), Bree (Marcia Cross) and Gabrielle (Eva Longoria)–through the eyes of Mary Alice (Brenda Strong), their deceased friend and neighbor.

The vast majority of the episodes are titled after lyrics by composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. A total of 180 episodes of Desperate Housewives were aired over eight seasons.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (2004–05)

Season one premiered on October 3, 2004 and featured a total of 23 episodes and one clip show. The show opens with the mysterious suicide of housewife Mary Alice Young on a beautiful day in the suburbs, on a street called Wisteria Lane. Mary Alice, who narrates the show from the afterlife, had four friends: Bree Van de Kamp, the seemingly perfect mother of two teenagers struggling to save her marriage; Lynette Scavo, the mother of four whose husband is always away on business; Susan Mayer, the divorced mother in search of love who finds love in the form of her new neighbour Mike Delfino, who has a secret of his own; and Gabrielle Solis, the materialistic former runway model who cheats on her husband. While trying to be good wives and mothers, the four friends also try to find out why their friend committed suicide. The discovery of a blackmail note among Mary Alice's belongings, a therapy session tape in which she admits her real name was Angela, and her widowed husband's strange behavior all pique their interest in the mysterious suicide of their friend and neighbor.

Teri Hatcher

Teri Lynn Hatcher (born December 8, 1964) is an American actress, writer, presenter, and former NFL cheerleader. She is known for her television roles, portraying Lois Lane on the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-1997), and as Susan Mayer on the television series Desperate Housewives (2004-2012), for which she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Early life

Hatcher was born in Palo Alto, California, the daughter of Esther (née Beshur), a computer programmer who worked for Lockheed Martin, and Owen Walker Hatcher, Jr., a nuclear physicist and electrical engineer. Her father is of English, Welsh and Irish descent (Hatcher has said that he also has Choctaw ancestry); her mother is of half Syrian and half Czech and Irish, ancestry. Hatcher took ballet lessons at the San Juan School of Dance in Los Altos. She grew up in Sunnyvale, California. and attended Mango Junior High (now Sunnyvale Middle School), Fremont High School in Sunnyvale and De Anza College in Cupertino.

Felicity Huffman

Felicity Kendall Huffman (born December 9, 1962) is an American film, stage, and television actress.

Huffman began her acting career in theatre and in 1990s also had many supporting roles in film and television. She starred as executive producer Dana Whitaker in the critically acclaimed ABC comedy-drama Sports Night from 1998 to 2000, which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination. She is best known for her role as Lynette Scavo in the long-running ABC comedy-drama Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), for which she earned a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for the debut season of the series and three Screen Actors Guild Awards overall.

Huffman drew critical praise for her performance as a transgender woman in the independent film Transamerica (2005). The role earned her a Golden Globe Award, Independent Spirit Award, National Board of Review, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Huffman has also starred in such films as Reversal of Fortune (1990), The Spanish Prisoner (1997), Magnolia (1999), Path to War (2002), Georgia Rule (2007), Phoebe in Wonderland (2008), Rudderless (2014) and Cake (2014). Since 2015, she has started in a third ABC series, the anthology crime drama American Crime, for which she has received critical acclaim including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie nomination. Additionally, she has been nominated on three more occasions for a Golden Globe Award, and has also won an Obie.

Marcia Cross

Marcia Anne Cross (born March 25, 1962) is an American television actress. She received acclaim for her roles as Dr. Kimberly Shaw on Fox soap opera Melrose Place (1992–1997) and Bree Van de Kamp on the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives (2004–2012), for which she was nominated for three Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, winning two, and an Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Early life

Cross was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts and is of English and Irish descent. She is one of three daughters of Janet, a teacher, and Mark Cross, a personnel manager. Cross was raised Catholic, and attended Marlborough High School, from where she graduated in 1980. Upon graduating high school, Cross received a half-scholarship to Juilliard, and graduated in 1984 with a B.F.A. in Acting. Cross returned to school in 1997 to earn a master's degree in psychology, which she received from Antioch University Los Angeles in 2003.

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama-mystery series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. It aired Sundays at 9 P.M. Eastern/8 P.M. Central, on ABC from October 3, 2004, until May 13, 2012. Executive producer Cherry served as showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season included Bob Daily, George W. Perkins, John Pardee, Joey Murphy, David Grossman, and Larry Shaw.

The main setting of the show was Wisteria Lane, a street in the fictional American town of 'Fairview' in the fictional 'Eagle State'. The show followed the lives of a group of women as seen through the eyes of a dead neighbor who committed suicide in the very first episode. The storyline covers thirteen years of the women's lives over eight seasons, set between the years 2004–2008, and later 2013–2017 (the story arc included a 5-year passage of time, as well as flashbacks ranging from the 1980s to the 2020s). They worked through domestic struggles and family life, while facing the secrets, crimes and mysteries hidden behind the doors of their — at the surface — beautiful and seemingly perfect suburban neighborhood.

Desperate Housewives (season 3)

The third season of the American dramedy-mystery television series Desperate Housewives commenced airing on ABC in the United States on September 24, 2006 and concluded on May 20, 2007. The season continues the story of the Wisteria Lane residents, describing their lives in the suburban neighborhood, while dealing with the arrival of the mysterious Orson Hodge. Broadcast in the Sunday night timeslot at 9:00 ET, the season aired twenty-three regular episodes. In addition, two clip shows were produced for the season, in order to put the previous events of the show in perspective. "The Juciest Bites" aired before the seventeenth episode, detailing the events of the first three seasons, in order to introduce the new story arcs in the end of the season. "Secrets and Lies" was narrated by Brenda Strong and was the last clip show to be produced for the series, airing before the inception of the fourth season.

The season received positive reviews, most critics noting an improvement in the writing after the unsuccessful second season. The production team and the cast members received positive critical response, resulting in numerous awards and nominations. This season also aired the first "disaster episode" of the series, "Bang", which saw the main characters dealing with a shooting in a local supermarket. Despite numerous complaints about scheduling in the previous seasons, Desperate Housewives was one of the few ABC series to keep its original time slot. The highest rated episode of the season was the season premiere, watched by 24.09 million viewers with an 8.5 rating, ranking second in the week.Buena Vista Home Entertainment released officially released the season on DVD in the United States and Canada on September 4, 2007.

Desperate Housewives (season 5)

The fifth season of Desperate Housewives, an American television series created by Marc Cherry, began airing on ABC on September 28, 2008 and concluded on May 17, 2009. The season takes place five years after the events of the season four finale in 2013/2014 and continues to focus on the lives of Wisteria Lane residents Susan Mayer, Lynette Scavo, Bree Hodge, Gabrielle Solis, Edie Williams and Katherine Mayfair, as seen through the eyes of the series' deceased narrator, Mary Alice Young. The season's mystery is centered on Edie Britt's third husband, Dave Williams. The series received media attention following the announcement that Edie, portrayed by Nicollette Sheridan, would be killed off close to the end of the season. Edie takes on the narration in "Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know" following her death, marking the second time Mary Alice's voice is not heard in an episode.

The series saw its lowest ratings up to that point in season five. Nevertheless, Desperate Housewives maintained its position as a top-ten series. It was the ninth most-watched series during the 2008-09 television season with an average of 14.8 million viewers per episode.